The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has paid $1.2 million in attorneys' fees to the lawyers representing protesters who won a U.S. Supreme Court case challenging the state's abortion clinic buffer zone law.

Emalie Gainey, a spokeswoman for Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, said the state was required by federal law to pay the attorneys' fees since the plaintiffs won on a constitutional claim. "The fees paid represent seven years of litigation, during which the Commonwealth prevailed at each step, until the Supreme Court overturned the District Court and First Circuit decisions," Gainey said.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned Massachusetts' law establishing a 35-foot buffer zone around abortion clinic entrances, finding unanimously that the law violated constitutional rights to free speech.

The law was passed in 2007. It was upheld by the U.S. District Court and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before it was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lead plaintiff Eleanor McCullen said the attorneys had not been paid until now. "The lawyers worked so hard pro bono because they're passionate about the unborn and passionate about First Amendment rights," McCullen said. "They would do it with or without pay, but we did win the case nine-zero, and that's what you do. If you lose, you pay."

The law affected Planned Parenthood abortion clinics in Boston, Worcester and Springfield. The amount of the fees was agreed upon in a settlement between the state alongside the district attorneys for Hampden, Worcester and Suffolk counties and the plaintiffs. It was approved by a judge on Dec. 15.

The settlement was not made public as part of the court documents. The only financial information included in the court file is a $7,000 bill from the plaintiffs' lawyers for court-related costs. The amount of the attorneys' fees was first reported by Cornerstone Action, a conservative advocacy group in New Hampshire that is opposing that state's buffer zone law. It was confirmed to The Republican / MassLive.com by Gainey and McCullen.

Michael Coyne, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, who is not involved in the case, said these types of attorneys' fees are not uncommon. Federal law requires the losing party in a civil rights case to pay attorneys' fees.

"The case was litigated through the District Court, the Appeals Court, ultimately the Supreme Court. It's not surprising you're going to see a large number," Coyne said. "Litigation becomes very time-consuming and expensive."

There were three plaintiffs' attorneys listed on the Supreme Court briefs – Mark Rienzi of the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America, Philip Moran of Salem, Massachusetts, and Michael DePrimo of Hamden, Connecticut. The attorneys' fees also typically cover all the lawyers who litigated the case at the District and Appeals courts. Three attorneys from the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund along with Moran and DePrimo were listed on the original court complaint before the U.S. District Court.

Marty Walz, president of the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, who was also one of the lead sponsors of the 2007 law in the Legislature, said, "The safety of our patients and staff are Planned Parenthood's top priority. We are grateful to Martha Coakley for her strong defense of the state's buffer zone law, and we look forward to Governor-elect (Charlie) Baker making sure the state remains a national leader in protecting women's safe access to health care."

After the Supreme Court struck down the law, the state Legislature passed a new law aimed at providing women with safe access to abortion clinics, by forbidding protesters from impeding access to a clinic.

The settlement was agreed on the month before Coakley leaves office. Her successor, Maura Healey, a former bureau chief in Coakley's office, was also involved in crafting the buffer zone law and defending it in court.